Just looking at her one clearly appreciates that she is old and frail therefore in need of support for food, clothing and shelter to live comfortably in her last days. However, each passing day this 60-year-old woman Florence Mkandawire from Gowoyani Village, Chief Chikulamayembe's Area (Rumphi), over 80 Km from the country's third largest city, Mzuzu in the north struggles just to have one meal for her and other over a dozen mouths. - “Life is really very tough for me because I look after 16 orphans. Their parents died. I keep them and they all look up to me for all their needs. I get food for my family from farming and sometimes we sell part of the harvest to buy items like…

Malawi has to convince couples to bear few children or risk continuing to struggle to achieve social economic development at all levels to reduce levels of poverty currently outweighing the majority of the country's over 13 million population, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). - “Malawi is among the least developed countries with high fertility and rapidly growing population, high levels of unmet need for family planning. With an annual population growth rate of 2.8 percent, 5.7 children per woman, 139 people per square kilometer, Malawi has one of the highest growth rates and is amongst the most densely populated countries in sub-Saharan Africa,” said…

The son to Malawi's former president Bakili Muluzi, Atupele Austin Muluzi, has been granted bail after his recent arrest by police allegedly for inciting violence after the lawenforcers stopped him from conducting political whistle stops and a political rally at Area 24 Township in Lilongwe. - Police threw tear gas canisters at Atupele’s United Democratic Front (UDF) supporters including Area 24 residents’ homes who were not part of the rally on Sunday last week. The matter angered the UDF supporters who went on rampage setting ablaze Area 24 Police Unit, vandalizing lawenforcers’ houses including beating the policemen. According to the young Muluzi’s lawye…

Tension gripped Malawi's Lakeshore District of Mangochi [over 300 Km from Lilongwe] also opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) stronghold following the heavy increase of presence of policemen in uniform, plain clothes including Malawi Government Security Intelligence Service (SIS) personnel. - The tension mounted ahead of President Bingu wa Mutharika’s visit to the area to lead Malawi in joining the rest of the world in commemorating the World Water Day on Thursday. “Since Monday this week after police were engaged in battle with UDF supporters in Lilongwe we have been experiencing an increase in the number policemen here,” Mangochi resident Plesley Liwago told A…

Malawi's government has assured citizens in the country that the drugs that were procured on behalf of the state by members of the donor community are safe. - One of the challenges that has emerged following the bad blood between Capital Hill in Lilongwe and its traditional donors is shortage of drugs in public hospitals after the development partners have withdrawn their budgetary support on allegations of the Bingu wa Mutharika administration’s failure to respect rule of law, good governance and human rights. “The Ministry of Health and the Pharmacy, Medicines and Poisons Board [PMPB] would like to inform the general public and all District Health Officers that the dru…

To her it was a puzzle without a solution as her two-year-old daughter; Annette frequently fell sick without getting better. "I couldn't just understand the cause of her sickness. I therefore rushed to a conclusion that my daughter had been bewitched," 32-year-old Thandiwe from Chiwamba Area in Kasungu, over 120 Km from Lilongwe said. - She disclosed that she was disillusioned with treatments administered to Annette yet none of them worked. “Then one day without further delays I decided to walk a 10 Km distance while carrying her on my back from my village to Chiwamba Health Centre,” Thandiwe said adding that it was at the health centre where Annette’s sic…

In Malawi, a Non-Governmental-Organization (NGO), Development Aid from People to People (DAPP) has been using the mobile gadgets in the fight against HIV and AIDS in the Total Control of the Epidemic (TCE) Project. - “The project was started in 2009 by Humana NetherIands together with DAPP and involves field workers gathering information on HIV and AIDS in the catchment areas through interviewing clients. They then file the collected data to our centre where it is analyzed and stored for use by stakeholders,” said DAPP Programme Coordinator Florence Longwe. Cecil Gada, a Field Officer involved in the collecting of data using mobile phones through interrogating clients in Thyo…

Malawian and African nurses planning to emigrate to the United Kingdom (UK) to secure jobs with better working conditions than in their countries risk being discriminated and failing to secure employment. According to a recent research, there has been a sharp decline in the number of nurses from poor developing countries including Malawi and Africa migrating to the UK widely attributed to UK Immigration, tougher immigration controls on overseas nurses. - However, some researchers reveal that foreign nurses are shunning the UK due to some forms of discrimination against foreign nurses. "It's more difficult for Malawian doctors to emigrate to the UK now, as the immigration rules c…

Soon after teenage girl Titha had reached her puberty she got selected to start her Form One at a boarding secondary school in Chiradzuru, less than 40 Km from Blantyre in southern Malawi. And before she picked her travelling bag the girl's mother told her to always remember to concentrate in her studies, respect her teachers at her new school. - “Teachers will be your parents at that school in my absence. Further, please my daughter avoid associating yourself with members of bad company, I mean disobedient students at your new school," said Titha's mother as she gave her daughter some money for transport and other needs. When Titha went to her school she practiced ju…

The time is around 2 O'clock afternoon in Traditional Authority (T/A) Kuntaja's Area in Blantyre District, southern Malawi as a group of nine hands are busy taking bites of nsima (Malawi's staple food made of hard porridge from maize flour) from one food bowl and dipping into another with boiled Usipa fish in fried tomato soup as relish before inserting the mixture into open mouths. - This is 36-year-old widow Flossie Liwanga, her five children and three of her late sister (Milka) taking their lunch while sitting on a goatskin mat on the verandah of her muddy grass thatched hut she calls a house. Liwanga and her family members are lucky to have food during this lean seaso…

Not all development statistics and graphs compiled in book files by people in authority, who swim in leadership pools of comfort using tax payers paddles reflect what a common poor man has actually experienced right on the ground. Some figures need proper scrutiny because they are strange to a society's development agenda. - For example, Malawi government boasts that about 80 in every 100 people in Malawi’s over 13 million population are accessing safe clean water hence already beaten the 74 percent safe water Millenium Development Goal (MDG) target by 2015. “Malawi is on course to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal on water and sanitation by 2015,”…

Every day used to be a struggle for her especially to just get a single meal for survival with her children. But now it is history because with pepper, she wiped all her tears of hunger and poverty. Yes! When a dark curtain fell on Egifa Nambazo after her breadwinner, (husband) passed on leaving her with four children she was more like abandoned at cross roads without knowing the direction to take. - “I didn't know how I was going to feed them all. I had a very small house and no reliable source of income. I survived with the children by brewing and selling beer, as well as selling chilies from my garden,” said Nambazo adding that the money she made was too little for her to…

Forty-year-old George Chambuluka married with seven children from Malawi's Lower Shire region (covering Chikhwawa and Nsanje Districts) sharing boundary with Mozambique abandoned his wife and children including his ailing 70-year-old frail, sick mother some weeks ago. He travelled a distance of over 40 Km from his village to the country's sole commercial city, Blantyre after failing to provide food for his family due to climate change. - “After accessing the cheap government subsidized fertilizer last season I harvested literally nothing since my crops withered while in the garden before maturity due to drought as a result of climate change,” said Chambuluka. He left…

As each day passes, 27-year-old widow Susan in Bangwe in Blantyre, Malawi, sub-Saharan Africa sees images of herself dead, enclosed in a wooden coffin carried by a crowd on the way to bury her in the township's graveyard leaving behind her two-year-old daughter Cynthia orphaned. - Over 24 months ago, while pregnant she was diagnosed HIV positive ; her CD4 count registered around 200. Since then, she swallows some Antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) daily to prolong her life. Susan collects her ARV pills from a nearby Limbe Health Centre in Blantyre which treats over 1,000 patients daily and provides the ARVs for free from Malawi Government with funding from the Global Fund for HIV and AIDS …

In an effort to facilitate an increase of people accessing safe water in Malawi, that country's government has hired a British firm to help it develop a water infrastructure strategy in the Southern African country. - “WS Atkins will work with us to provide a framework for the implementation of economically, technically, environmentally and socially attractive water infrastructure investments in Malawi,” said Principal Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development Sandram Maweru. WS Atkins was according to Maweru chosen from six bidders vying for the contract. “The British firm has been tasked with raising awareness over issues inclu…

If you think just doing the job you were employed for can not invite some trouble in your career then take a flight to London and ask one former British envoy to Malawi, Fergus Cochrane- Dyte. - Dyet was posted to Lilongwe not as a tourist but as a watchman for British tax payers and one day just did the job he was employed for-filing a message on what was actually happening in his working station (Malawi) to his government in Downing Street North West 10 in London through Foreign Secretary William Hague. In the message which was delivered through a confidential diplomatic cable Dyet described how President Bingu wa Mutharika was becoming "increasingly autocratic and intolerant of c…

Just mention her name and anyone with a goodwill for this tiny, landlocked, poverty impoverished southern African state honestly agrees that she is one of few, humble daughters of substance and a role model for a girl child and fellow women at all levels in this country and even beyond the borders! - This great woman is Malawi’s Vice-President (VP) Joyce Hilda Banda whose qualities and past contributions including hardworking background had prior to the 2009 general elections, won President Bingu wa Mutharika’s heart to hand pick her as his running mate disregarding his fellow men in Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Banda has vast experiences that have contributed to Malaw…

When 11-year-old Jack Mwanapwa lost his mother to HIV and AIDS at a tobacco estate in Kasungu, 120 Km away from Malawi's capital, Lilongwe, he still had hope to lean on his father's shoulder. Jack's father, Adrian left his home in Zomba in the south in the company of his late wife, Address 20 years ago to work at one of Kasungu's 22,000 registered tobacco estates in the centre in search for a better life. - But Jack, who was himself born HIV positive had his hope of leaning on his father evaporating into thin air because soon after his mother’s death his father remarried Eniffa and she ill-treated him and his father did nothing. “Every time I fell sick, Aun…

Nine civilians have died in northern Malawi alone during the southern Africa nation's July 20 demonstrations against President Bingu wa Mutharika's administration's alleged poor governance, violation of human rights, disrespectful of the rule of law including failure to identify long term solutions for recurring forex and fuel shortages in the country. - All the dead victims were reported in Mzuzu's St John of God Clinic and Mzuzu Central Hospital in Mzuzu City in the northern part of Malawi. "Eight of the victims died in hospital after sustaining serious injuries while one was brought already dead at the hospital,” Ministry of Health Spokesperson Henry Chi…

Since attaining Independence from Britain on July 6 1964 Malawi is known for peace, has never been at war hence presence of at least 20 soldiers patrolling streets is rare. The men in uniform have mainly been entertaining civilians with military displays during state functions. - However, on Wednesday fear gripped Area 23 Township in Lilongwe City when heavily armed Malawi Defense Force (MDF) personnel ambushed the suburb by surprise to restore order after Malawi Police Service (MPS) failed to contain the pressure from demonstrating civilians against President Bingu wa Mutharika’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Government. Thousands of civilians in Malawi demonstrated against Mu…

It is around 5a.m in the slums of Nkolokoti-Kachere in Malawi's sole commercial city, Blantyre. Despite the biting drizzle, Elida Mkando, has sneaked out of her matrimonial bed and got dressed while her husband is still asleep. In her hand is a 10-litre pail heading straight to join the python-like queue of females armed with buckets to draw water. - The water has been made possible by the Water Users Association (WUA) in Malawi. “We no longer get water from dirty streams,” said Fatima Misoya, a resident and water vendor in Nkolokoti. Over half of Nkolokoti-Kacheres’ close to 40 water kiosks used to be run by public firm Blantyre Water Board (BWB) while others were …

Imagine that your mother has just brought you into this world. Then, instead of bringing you with that motherly love and care a mother is proudly known for, to later mature into a productive member of society, gets rid of you by dumping you in a public toilet. This nerve shaking activity has become rampant in Malawi. - The atrocities are being committed by mostly teenage mothers. A snap investigation reveals that among other things, increase in baby dumping and killing are as a result of frustrated young women. “I had decided to strangle my three-month-old baby boy. But, after a second thought decided to dump him in a trench because he acted as an obstruction to my business. I am a…

If you think God holds all His divine powers, rights and patents to produce rainfall and let glorious gates in heaven open for it to fall elsewhere on earth to enable farmers produce food you better think twice. At least not in the case of Maleta Village in Malawi, where people pay for rains to fall. - The creator can produce rain and let it fall elsewhere on earth for farmers to produce in their gardens except in Maleta Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Kadewere in Chiradzuru less than 40 km from Malawi’s sole commercial city of Blantyre. To villagers in Maleta and surrounding areas God and climate change do not exist because their 90-year-old Group Village Headman (GVH) Maleta…

Barefooted 19-month-old Suzgo, in a dirty green piece of cloth improvised as a napkin and little naval blue blouse, while grinning, crawls on a dirty ground in her home, Symon Ndolo Village in Mzimba, northern Malawi towards her mud smeared Mickey Mouse doll in an orange dress. What she does not know is that her mother, Nyuma, had to die to let her live. - Yes! Behind Suzgo’s existence is a heartbreaking story of a mother losing her life to let her daughter live. About 19 months ago, Nyuma’s friends and relatives buried her remains seven feet below in the village’s grave belly. On her red earth tomb, a wooden cross still stands erect bearing three clearly marked dates…

It is a challenge for a lot of people living on the shores of Lake Malawi to access health facilities when they get sick. The lake is Africa's third largest and makes up one fifth of the country's total area. For most of the thousand miles of Lake Malawi's shoreline there is no road and access to health facilities for about four million residents living at the lakeside. - “When we are desperate for health care many of us travel by dugout canoes, risking the dangerous current storms and crocodile attacks to get to the nearest health centre,” said Orwin Totomkamwa Banda, a Chizumulu Island resident. The island is on Lake Malawi just like its twin sister of Likoma …

A Malawian high ranking civil servant Eric Ning'ang'a says despite Malawi Government making some positive developments on gender equality and women empowerment only negative issues continue to be highlighted. - He therefore, while admitting that there are some challenges in the course for Malawi and Africa to promote women’s rights and giving them opportunities, there is also a need to give credit where it is due if social economic development and poverty eradication are to be achieved. He granted Africanews.com an interview to elaborate more. Africanews.com: Can you please briefly describe who you are? Ning’ang’a: I am an academician, politician and ph…

HIV/AIDS might be a killer, however, has its positive side in Malawi. If the country is allowed to manufacture own life prolonging drugs - antiretroviral - for People Living with HIV/AIDS, over 4,000 Malawians could secure jobs, according to the Principal Secretary for Nutrition, HIV/AIDS Mary Shawa. - Securing a job is difficult in Malawi as Labour Minister Yunus Mussa said only 500,000 (4 per 100 people in the over 13 million population) are employed in the country. Shawa said in 2009 President Bingu wa Mutharika directed that she and her team should do everything possible to enable Malawi start manufacturing its own Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs within the country. “We have been…

No surgeon puts on a green gown, strap a mask round the mouth and nose and effect an operation on a patient on the operation table in the theatre without first making sure there is an adequate amount of this liquid in this special hospital room. Blood gives life as it facilitates the smooth running of human body systems. - It helps the system break down food (digestion), movement of blood itself (circulation), human production (reproductive), breathing (respiratory) and nervous system which coordinates the brain with organs of the body to function properly. Despite the importance of blood, in Malawi however, the country’s blood banks are always thirsty for more blood due to low bloo…

Imagine you are an energetic woman in early 40s and your country is to hold general elections and you pluck out courage to enter into historical books by choosing to run as its first ever female presidential candidate. This happened to one Loveness Gondwe during Malawi's May 19 2009 general election. - Out of all women in Malawi, Gondwe stood out as presidential candidate for the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) party to compete with men including Malawi Congress Party (MCP)’s John Tembo and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s Bingu wa Mutharika. But despite being the first woman to run for the highest office Gondwe was not fully supported even by fellow women. Som…

Malawians wishing to hold demonstrations in the country must first pay K2 million [over $13, 000] deposit to the Malawi Police Service (MPS), according to President Bingu wa Mutharika speaking over the weekend at the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) mass rally at the 25,000 capacity Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre. - “Law or no law in place the money must be paid in cash before a demonstration in case property is damaged to cover for damaged property because government will not be responsible for such damages,” said Mutharika while clad in his party’s blue colours. The President further challenged the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) who are planning to go into the street…

Five-year-old Rosetta from Nathenje, a rural settlement sharing boundary with Malawi's capital Lilongwe, is a lucky girl because something terrible would have happened to her life. Doctors recommended that she undergo surgical operation after a diagnosis revealed that she had a tumour in her large intestine. - When the day of her operation came she was placed on a theatre table at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) ready to be operated on. However, as surgeons were preparing to put on their green surgical kits including strap masks round their mouths and put sterilized instruments to operate on the little girl, suddenly there was an electricity black-out forcing the operation postpon…

The couple and their two children are based in Lamberth, United Kingdom (UK). In short they have a comfortable home filled with all necessary modern household items including four cars for use. They always have a nutritious breakfast, lunch and supper. They also have access to safe drinking water. When they fall sick, they get first class medical treatment. - Their children Jane, 18 and George, 15 are studying Law and Accountancy at Oxford University and North West London College respectively. Just recently, the man and his wife also bought five trucks that operate between the town of Reading and London in their country. Their life is a paradise of prosperity on earth because they have a …

At the end of each quarter of the year, Stella Mkwate, in her 30s, a Public Relations Officer (PRO) for a beverage manufacturing firm in Lilongwe goes to the supermarket for shopping before driving over 90 Km from Malawi's capital to visit her grandmother, Theodora Botolo in her 90s at home in Chinyamula Village in Dedza. Her love for the old woman mushroomed when she was just six. - Stella’s mother, Fiona, a retired government secondary school teacher in her 60s used to, during her teaching days take the then little girl to the old woman to experience both urban and rural life. Her daughter did not enjoy her first visit to the village because she felt out of place to be close …

Just step your foot in villages in Traditional Authority T/A Kuntaja and neighbouring T/A Kapeni all in Middle Shire Area in Blantyre District, southern Malawi. Soon after arriving in these two areas your forehead, arm pits will turn into your body's own water springs through releasing sweat profusely due to fierce scorching sun rays. You would struggle to find a tree shade to escape the sun heat. - The two areas are suffering from climate change hangovers due to rampant environmental degradation activities such as deforestation, charcoal burning and poor land uses. The activities have borne bitter fruits such as rising temperatures and persistent droughts hence reducing food production…

On Tuesday February 1 this year, Cleopatra Mwaluwafu, 33, a Customer Relations Manager for a bank in Lilongwe woke up from her bedroom at Area 47 in Lilongwe, and after breakfast got into her sky blue Toyota Carina saloon car. But as she drove to her office, she suddenly noted a red light on her car's dashboard, a sign of low fuel in the tank. - She pulled the car near a pump at a nearest filling station and a male attendant got a key from her, opened the tank cover, and inserted the pump’s nozzle. Mwaluwafu pulled out four K500 bank notes (K2,000 or $13) from her blue purse and passed them to the attendant who filled 6.89 litres in her car’s tank at K290.00 per litre be…

Ask anyone about the products Ntcheu district which is about 160 Km from Malawi's capital, Lilongwe is famous for and you will be told that this district also sharing common boundary with Malawi's neighbor, Mozambique, is popular due to Irish potatoes production. - But taking advantage of illiteracy levels among the Irish potato growers and the nutritious tubers’ abundance in Ntcheu’s Trading Centres, buyers from all walks of life more often exploit the farmers through offering them low prices for their produce on the market. After their eyes got opened that they toil hard in the field to produce quality potatoes but get frustrated to sell their produce at a good pr…

It happened on a Friday in January this year. While others in their low pitch voices at her funeral sympathized with her, others scorned her as her coffin was slowly being lowered in the seven feet grave in the slum of Mgona in Lilongwe, Malawi. "Surely had her uncle and aunt given the late girl a second chance in their mansion she would have possibly lived," said James Kankhwende, a retired locomotive driver in his late 60s. - “I don’t agree with you. This girl asked for her early death herself through contracting HIV and AIDS willingly. If she had love for her own life she would have not turned her own body into a cash machine through commercial sex work,” charg…

Fishermen elsewhere on the planet are associated with canoes, boats, water and nets and of course fish catching. But due to low fish catches as a result of rising human population and fishing practices unfriendly to the environment in Lake Malawi, some fishermen in Nkhata Bay District, about 50 Km from Mzuzu (Malawi's major city in the northern region) are harvesting bees. - How? Apart from fishing, the fishermen are also engaged in beekeeping for honey production to supplement their meagre benefits from their fishing business. In fact, the fishermen have an association to run the affairs of their beekeeping business. Nkhata Bay Honey Producers Cooperative (NHPC) was formed in 200…

The scorching sun rays pierce everywhere. Nevertheless, 48-year-old Gaston Muheriwa in Traditional Authority Kaduya's Area in Phalombe, southern Malawi bears with them as he watches his tenants busily transferring tobacco leaves from the field to the barn to prepare it for the 2011 sales tobacco season at Limbe Auction Floors in Blantyre City. - The energy to grow tobacco for this season stems from Muheriwa’s 100 bales bought at a good price of between $1.90 and $2.15 per Kg during 2010 as compared to 2009 sales season. Just four years ago, after the tobacco sales season, Muheriwa was stuck in bad debts after incurring huge losses in tobacco business because all his sales incom…

Four prisoners at the Maula Prison in the Lilongwe city of Malawi have dragged the Malawi Government to court for failing to provide them with adequate food and better conditions. Chrispin Sibande, a Principal Legal Officer with Malawi Human Rights Commission made the disclosure at a workshop. - The announcement follows Africa News’ investigative feature earlier this month highlighting how prisoners in Malawi are eating less food as compared to the former one party State of the late first president Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda. “Insufficient budgetary allocations to prisons are making it difficult for authorities to provide not just adequate but also nutritious food to inmates,…

Malawi government is to, through its communication wing, the Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (Macra) soon start monitoring the operations of internet facilities where most people get unlawful materials to face the law. This is to avoid the spread of pornographic videos and pictures on the internet. - According to the state controlled Malawi News Agency (Mana) member of Parliamentary Committee on Media and Communications, Jonas Viyazgi last week took Macra to task to explain what the authority is doing to avoid increasing publications of unlawful materials including pornographic videos and pictures on the internet. “There is always increasing publication of pornographic ma…